


Underneath The Surface

by Nikkicola



Category: TWICE (Band)
Genre: F/F, High School, powers, powers au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-29
Updated: 2018-06-08
Packaged: 2019-05-15 13:54:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 20,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14791776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nikkicola/pseuds/Nikkicola
Summary: The world is a dangerous place. People with unbelievable powers started to surface a couple of years ago and since then the world has been terrorised by these seemingly-unstoppable genetic freaks. One day, Tzuyu, a normal high school student, is caught up in one of these attacks and almost dies. She can barely process this fact alone, but when she meets the mysterious yet irresistable Sana, her world suddenly becomes a lot harder to understand.[Rated because of the topics and themes covered - no smut though - read at your discretion]Please note that Satzu is part of this fanfic but they aren't always the main focus - so if you're okay with that then we're golden. Updates may be slow and I wouldn't expect too much just yet but I do hope that you enjoy this!





	1. Breathless

**Author's Note:**

> I'm currently reposting the chapters that I have on aff to here.

The roof gave way and she was drowning.

Water rushed at her from every conceivable direction as she sank down, down further into the blackening depths that muffled the surrounding screams of terror, shaping them into a soundtrack of some strange alien world that was determined to strangle the life out of anyone it found. Panic had set in long-before and mingled with the debris that crashed into the pool, slowly submerging itself with whoever was unlucky enough to lie in its way. Murkiness had settled, created through the introduction of dust that had crumbled from above, mixing itself with the water and blindfolding its victims as they fell under its spell.

Too far below for anyone to notice or care about, the beautiful girl now lay trapped. Even as she swayed in the water her body held itself in a regal way, making its own flailing look intentional and mystical as if it were something that she had invented herself and not a panicked reaction that arose from the sudden collapse of rationality. It was almost morbidly poetic how such a needlessly huge section held down such a small, fragile piece of timeless art submerged only meters away from help. Each second seemed to drift for her, dancing like tiny air bubbles escaping their watery prisons in an effort to enrapture the entrantress and coerce her into watching them _just a little longer_ and forgetting the moment; it would too soon be shattered by flashing lights, yellow tape and uniform-clad officers.

But nevertheless, she was still running out of time.

Her head felt dazed, disconnected...she could barely pull her thoughts together to even realise that she needed to get out - she need to get out now, lest she surrender herself to, well, death. The need to breathe was barely suppressible, her body was lurching against her will in an attempt to take in something, anything to prevent succumbing to the lack of oxygen that further muddled her mind and tested what little self-restraint that was left. It’d be so easy to let death take her, to just give up and let herself drift into oblivion and to condemn anyone that was left to a world-shaking grief. Yet despite the growing fatigue, the will to survive was insistent, reminding her that she needed to make it through this.

Strands of hair matting together to form a net that caught her fingers and obscured her vision, she kicked off the floor, moving a painful inch or two at best as she tried to get out from underneath the debris that was pinning her down. She kicked again. She moved a couple of inches more. She kicked again. And again. And again. Slowly, inch by inch, she painfully scraped her way out, eyes blinking back the chlorine and dust as they searched erratically for a way out. Her world was a tumbling, twisting mess of darkness and so little sense existed in it that she found herself simply grasping at both the empty space in front of her and her memories, desperately clawing for some sort of purchase as she attempted to pull herself up and out.

Unfortunately, a combination of brute strength with images of cherished faces and family pets didn’t prevent her from being yanked back down, the faint glimmer that suggested the surface still slipping away at an alarming rate. An enormous weight had settled in her legs, making them clumbersome and almost paralysing as they were determined to bring her down rather than pushing towards potential rescue and safety. The grouty tiles had never been more appealing as a pillow in those swirling waters as the option of settling down and resting on them became overpowering once more. The hazy figures that were beyond continued to rush about, swarming like ants before her vision, so far away and so incomprehensible to the lone struggler isolated in the unforgiving grasp that refused to let her go. But the will to live reared its head once more.

Suddenly the surface was a fingertip away.

And then she broke through, gasping in gulps of air as if the building wasn’t falling apart around her. She didn’t care how she got there, didn’t care to fill the gaps in her memory that would explain the distance she travelled without herself knowing, all she cared about was that she finally had _oxygen_ and she could _breathe_.

The authorities had arrived by now and she found herself reaching out for a pole that she had been offered, clinging to it as she was brought to the side and pulled out. The blankets they offered her were warm and the contrast they provided really made her realise to how much warmth she had been lacking while she was subjected to a barrage of questions about what happened and who she was.

Everything was happening so quickly and she was still so in her own head that the events barely even registered as a blur before Tzuyu found herself being bundled up in a shinier version of her blanket and tossed in an ambulance headed for the nearest hospital **.**


	2. Ripples

Perhaps the biggest impression that had been made on Tzuyu was the lack of them.

Not mentally, obviously. A series of violent nightmares would unfailingly yank her back into consciousness, all graphically depicting her suffocating as water mercilessly rushed into her lungs, the sun’s flame slowly dwindling under the weight of the ever-rising waves. The darkness was unending and absolute; when she woke up she was watched by the same lack of warmth and colour that haunted her dreams. “Exhausting” didn’t even come close to describing how emotionally dead she felt.

Yet the how little her life had changed from its normal routine stood in stark contrast to how much it felt like it had.

It didn’t matter how many hours she had lain motionless in bed that morning, not moving an inch for fear of discovering it was just another dream, nor how unreal it actually felt to carry on as if that wasn’t exactly what happened, she had been pulled away from Gucci, her beloved dog, and back into regular school life in the blink of an eye. She still had to traipse into the same classrooms, listen to the same monotonous dronings of the same monotonous teachers and watch the same fellow students in a surprisingly normal way.

Sure, everyone had heard of the attack by the time she had to go back to school. Stares were dripping from the walls of every corridor accompanied by an obnoxious symphony of whispers about swimming pools, ceilings and attacks. They all knew that she was the one who had almost drowned - almost died - because of the genetic terrorists and all seemed to think that they were entitled to a personal explanation as to her experience and what happened, irrespective of whether or not they actually knew her.

You see, rumours of the so-called “freaks” had first appeared on websites a couple of years ago, evidenced only by painfully shaky phone footage and a couple of blurry screenshots with circles drawn on them, usually accompanied with words such as “hoax” or “conspiracy”. Soon after similar images started to trickle in at an ever-increasing pace, quickly becoming a sweeping torrent that was gaining huge amounts of attention, even drawing the eye of a couple of celebrities. The news had dismissed it at first, calling them bad photoshops and the newest trend after dancing hot dogs and frogs riding unicycles.  

But the news couldn’t turn a blind eye when people started dropping like flies. Day after day new reports would come in about terrorists with mysterious powers devastating towns and cities alike in unstoppable rampages. The government had to be held accountable and so a special task force was immediately formed to deal with the “biological threats”. It consisted of specially trained military and police units and with precise, calculated strikes soon brought the whole situation under control. They truly were the pros: Reports became rarer, sightings only really happening when someone with powers became too big for their boots and decided to try and single-handedly take on a small army with specially-designed weapons that could target their abilities and restrict them to their weaknesses.

Over time the threat slowly dissipated, causing the BTC (Biological Terror Containment) to become complacent, relying on their technology to capture any rogues while the public’s fear was whittled away, revealing the anger that had been simmering underneath. “Biological threat” was too clinical and removed, so people took to calling them all sorts of things ranging from “vermin” to “mutants” with “freaks” being one of the more popular slurs. People had turned on their neighbors if they displayed any sort of sympathy towards the freaks and many people with powers that had been imprisoned would often disappear, only to be found the next day, hanged by a lynch mob when they were supposedly “safe behind bars”.

Now not much had changed. Public opinion was still very low and if you were caught with any sort of unusual ability you would be brutally arrested and thrown in jail, if you were lucky.

According to Dahyun, there was even an anti-powers group in school.

“Come on Tzuyu, you have to come! I bet half the school now knows who you are because of the accident and it’s be weird if you don’t attend now that you’ve sorta become our mascot.”

Meet Dahyun, Tzuyu’s over-confident, over-excited best friend. She was looked down upon by more mature students, looked up to by younger students and generally not disliked by the majority of the teacher population. She was known for looking like a tofu, doing a mean eagle dance and being really, really loud.

“Anyways I said I’d get you to join as soon as you came back so you’ve got to come now otherwise my honour will be at stake!”  
She faked a gasp. Honestly, she should have joined the drama club judging from her natural affinity for everything dramatic.

“It’d be good for you to go along and discuss what happened. Look, even Chaeyoung goes and you know how hard she is to convince to do anything.”

Saying this she nudged the small girl currently doodling at her desk, interrupting both her concentration and her sketching. Chaeyoung sent a bemused and slightly exasperated look at Dahyun, clearly wondering why she had chosen to bother her when she was in the middle of some artistic inspiration.

“Go on Chaeyoung, you come to the Anti-Freak Society - tell her to join too.”

A moment passed. Then Chaeyoung sighed.

“I don’t really care if Tzuyu goes or not, it’s her decision in the end. It’s not like we do much there besides talk and you were the one to drag me there when I really just want to draw.”

“Aw you’re no help!”

She stuck her tongue out at the slightly miffed Tofu, turning once more to her sketch pad. Chaeyoung wasn’t really that enthusiastic about anything except drawing so it was no surprise that she seemed to not have much of an opinion either way about this club. In all the years that they had all known each other, it surprised Tzuyu the most that Chaeyoung and Dahyun even got along judging from the fact that the former was relatively reserved and calm when it came to new things while the latter jump at any chance to share any of her interests, even if she had developed some of them only minutes before. Tzuyu had met them when she had first come to Korea, not fully proficient in Korean and struggling to understand both the world and the people around her due to the language barrier. Then those two had introduced themselves to her (probably Dahyun’s idea, thinking about it) and together they formed some strange sort of trio, not quite fitting in but finding friendship in each other.

“Whether you like it or not, you’re both coming with me.”

It appeared that Dahyun had given up on pestering them stubbornly and had decided to drag them along instead. She grabbed Tzuyu’s arm, almost ripping it out of its socket as she yanked her out of her seat. Chaeyoung received similar treatment, sending her pencils flying in the process and the pair barely managed to grab their stuff before they were frog marched out of the classroom. They must have been quite a sight since they all got weird looks from the passing students currently enjoying their lunch breaks and talking to their friends.

Eventually they reached a small door through which a couple of people seated on chairs in a circle could be seen.

“I didn’t realise we were stopping by alcoholics anonymous first,” Tzuyu muttered, unimpressed with the idea of entering the room and the inevitable attention that would draw. “Do you have something to tell the group Dahyun?”

Chaeyoung snorted, having obviously overheard. Dahyun, unfazed, payed no heed and dragged them in, announcing their entrance with her usual flourish and the banging of the door. Immediately all eyes turned to them, curious gazes taking in the newcomers. They already knew Dahyun and Chaeyoung since they had previously attended and they could presumably guess who she was just by Dahyun declaring “I BROUGHT TZUYU!” at a couple of decibels louder than what a human should be able to produce. Besides, Tzuyu herself could recognise a couple of classmates and familiar faces so it was likely that they knew of her as well.

Everyone was now stood, moving towards the trio just inside the room. Dahyun gave Tzuyu a little shove towards them whilst jerking her head in a motion that heavily suggested that she should go in that direction. Behind them, the temptingly ajar door started to painstakingly inch closed as the room’s inhabitants got ever closer. She soon found herself drowned in roughly fifteen new names and faces, each not particularly remarkable in themselves except for one.

There was just something in the way she held herself, in the look she had when she scanned Tzuyu’s face as she walked up. Even the light seemed to get trapped in her eyes and it sparkled at exactly the same time that she began to smile a sweet and shy smile in Tzuyu’s direction. Then she tripped. Over nothing, apparently. Luckily she didn’t tumble to the ground and instead just stumbled a little, but it was enough time to bring Tzuyu back into the moment and remind her of how nervous she had been feeling ever since they had come here.

“Hi, my name is Sana.”

Her voice was as cute as her outward appearance would suggest, sounding light and playful in nature. Tzuyu was sure that her face would also carry an adorable expression but couldn’t seem to remove her gaze from a small stain on the carpet, feeling completely overwhelmed. Even as she yanked her eyes from it and upwards, she discovered that she couldn’t keep eye-contact for more than a second due to the awkward atmosphere that had pounced on the room. She felt like she should say something but she could barely get anything through her brain, let alone formulate a sentence.

Another second passed and then it was back onto the next introduction, the rest of the group seemingly unaware of the sudden increase in Tzuyu’s quietness.

After they had all quite finished she was ushered to a chair and then the meeting begun (or restarted, she supposed, as they were probably not doing nothing before she had arrived with Dahyun and Chaeyoung). It seemed like a bit of a mess: No-one seemed to have any idea what they were supposed to be doing except for one of the older students (whose name Tzuyu had already forgotten), who consulted a rather crumpled piece of paper from time to time, before announcing the topic they were discussing. Today’s seemed to be about the increase of attacks in the area recently and naturally interest turned to Tzuyu since she had been involved. When this happened and she was pressed for details, she gave as few as possible, trying to avoid disturbing the memories which would cause ripples to wreck the semblance of calm she had built up around herself.

The attack itself seemed to have captured the attention of many of the members. According to some, the police were closer than ever to catching the culprit.

“Or culprits,” a kid called Mark interjected, clearly excited at the thought of sharing some information. “My dad is part of the police and apparently there were two freaks there that night, not one.”

“Two? Then why hasn’t the BTC got involved? Do you really think that they’d leave the police to deal with this serious an issue if there were two of them?”

Mark shrugged, clearly unfazed at another member’s indignant outburst.

“Lack of funding. Dad thinks that they’re not nearly as good as they were 10 years ago, says that they could barely catch a fly even if they had a whole squadron of their best men. Anyways, did you see how wrecked the place was? I’d rather have two average freaks running around than one supercharged one.”

“I’m sure your dad is the most reliable source ever for this information. Anyways, there was speculation about how structurally sound the...”

And so on.

Tzuyu didn’t really listen much after that point, she was trying her hardest to pretend to look interested while counting the minutes until she could leave for her next class. Next to her Chaeyoung, also seemingly bored, had produced yet another sketchbook from god-knows-where and had proceeded to lose herself creating a whole other world on the page. Dahyun had launched herself into the “discussion”, expressing in an unnecessarily loud manner how she'd had a pole fall off the wall and smack her on the head whilst she was showing off her dancing at the pool once.

And Sana…

Tzuyu hadn’t looked up much, but when she did her eyes would drift to the girl, observing how she seemed to follow the conversation with unparalleled interest. Occasionally, Sana would glance over in Tzuyu’s direction, and she’d have to quickly look away lest she be caught staring at someone she barely even knew.

As she was walking home later, after hours of self study and hagwons, she found herself thinking back to the club once more and pondered a little longer than she probably should have done about a certain member, wondering if they were like that normally and what they did in their free time. Even after she had tucked into dinner and studied well into the morning, she couldn’t seem to shake the thoughts that kept circulating her brain. She was so addled that she didn’t even remember walking from her study room to her bedroom, leaving her confused and disorientated.

She finally gave in to dreaming only minutes later, dreading the terrors of the night but needing to rest before she drove herself crazy over the thought of that girl, which was probably just a byproduct of a lack of sleep. Definitely.


	3. On/Off

She might have been going crazy.

Everything should have been back to normal by now and by most standards it was: Her brother had gone back to teasing her, her parents had started to inquire about her grades once more and she had long since forgotten what it was like to not have to go to school. Yet, despite this, Tzuyu’s dreams hadn’t seemed to let up and instead got worse, now starring smokey figures running around and destroying everything in sight with some strange energy. Sometimes they would shoot the roof down, trying to drown her for real this time, while other times they would chase her and she’d scramble away, never quick enough, and she’d feel scorching heat singe her hair and melt the skin off her face.

When she would finally come to she’d be covered from head to toe in sweat, lying paralysed in the darkness. She would never move, the nightmares still circling her like lions closing in on some poor, weakened and helpless animal that they had chosen to be their prey. These shadows would lick their lips every time Tzuyu would attempt to shift slightly, enjoying her discomfort and revelling in her anticipation during those long moments before they would consume her - but they’d always push the limit, enjoying the wait so much that they’d overstay their tenuous welcome and the sun would peek from behind some nearby buildings to chase them into a far corner of her room.  

When her legs finally regained the strength that had departed in the night, she’d swing them down to rest on the floor and she’d heave herself to her feet. She’d be in such a daze that she’d then find herself in the bathroom almost immediately afterwards, splashing water in her face as if that would somehow take away the tiredness from her face and drown the voice saying that spacing out that often wasn’t normal. She’d then make her way downstairs to force a breakfast usually consisting of some rice and soup down her throat before pulling her uniform on and grabbing her school stuff on the way out.

On the days where she was particularly late she tried to ignore how much quicker the journey was and didn’t ponder for too long on how she’d managed to make a 15 minute journey in 5 without even paying attention. _Maybe she wanted to see Sana again?_ She’d dismiss those thoughts, not wanting to dwell on them too much.

A few weeks had passed since she had first attended the club and ever since she couldn’t seem to get her out of her head. It had all started at that meeting, when she had seen Sana for the very first time. Somehow, despite all the emotions ploughing into Tzuyu on a daily basis, she'd made an impression on her: She started seeing her around school, noticing her in the hallways and watching her figure dart into (or sometimes trip into) classrooms. Soon Sana had started to pop up unbidden in her thoughts during classes, as if she excluded some sort of pull that attracted Tzuyu to her. She was very clumsy, that was very much made obvious by their first meeting, but there was just _something_ else that Tzuyu couldn’t put her finger on.

She was being a little irrational, Tzuyu thought, whilst half-listening one of the club’s members greeting them and starting off the meeting in the same way all the previous ones had been started. She knew that she wasn’t making sense yet she just couldn’t change her emotions on a whim, no matter how much she tried. Sana was sitting almost opposite her today, gaze softly focused on the current speaker in such a way that suggested that she wasn’t listening either. Tzuyu felt curiosity take over and her eyes started to drift lower and lower until she was examining the other girl’s lips, noticing that they were plump, slightly parted and ever so _inviting_.

Suddenly Sana turned her head and looked directly at Tzuyu, catching her in the act of staring at her lips. Immediately Tzuyu dropped her gaze, internally panicking at the thought of the other girl realizing what she had been doing. _What had she been doing?_ She continued to avoid eye-contact, shielding herself from the curious glance that was sent her way and instead latched on the discussion that had just started.

“Did you guys see the news last night?” Dahyun bellowed, enthusiasm leaking off her in tidal waves. “We actually made the news!”

“How’d we make the news?” Chaeyoung butted in, looking up from her sketchbook just long enough to deliver her thoughts. “We don’t do anything in here apart from talk.”

Dahyun sighed. Her eyes seemed to fill with disappointment, her face contorting in a valiant attempt to not break out in tears.

“How could you Chaeyoung? How _could_ you!”

She really did look on the brink of crying. Surprisingly though, no one except a couple of faces seemed even remotely bothered while the remainder just stared at Dahyun heartlessly, waiting for her to go on.

Which was just as well, because she immediately straightened up, stopped pretending to be completely and utterly miserable, and continued on as if she had never stopped to indulge in dramatics.

“Not us _specifically_. I meant the town. A reporter must have heard about the incident and decided to report it because it suddenly came on the news while I was eating breakfast. I couldn’t believe it! I mean we were just sitting there and suddenly WHAM. Us.”

There was a brief pause while everyone processed what Dahyun said and then a different member spoke up.

“Yeah but why are they reporting it, especially now? It wasn’t a major attack since no-one died and it’s been days since it happened.” He had a striking resemblance to an anime character with rather sharp features and a distinctive nose. Tzuyu wasn't quite sure what his name was just yet (names weren't quite her strong point) but she thought it began with a Z.

“Probably because the freak has managed to avoid the police despite having caused a building to collapse,” Jennie, a girl from a couple of Tzuyu’s classes added. “How can anyone rest knowing that a crazy person is on the loose, ready to cause havoc at any moment? Honestly, the police should do more to capture them, especially since this criminal seems especially dangerous.”

“Hey my dad and the rest of the police are doing everything in their power and so it isn’t their fault. They barely have any resources yet you expect them to be able to track down and capture such a dangerous freak?”

Mark had now joined in, rather riled up and ready to give his opinion without delay.

Tzuyu watched as they began another heated debate - something she had become quite accustomed to recently. Despite there being roughly fifteen regular members, only about a third actually contributed regularly to the discussion while the others preferred to observe and interject if necessary. Sana was definitely in the latter category, preferring to sit back and enjoy the others making fools out of themselves rather than join the fray. Tzuyu herself would usually also prefer to do this, but unfortunately she was not afforded the same anonymity that most people had.

Having had first hand experience, Tzuyu was almost considered a guru of knowledge about the freaks by some even though her actual knowledge was less-than average. This meant that she would often be thrown a random question when she was least expecting which she'd then have to blabble her way through it to a satisfactory level. If the question was actually about her experience with the incident, she'd skirt it as much as possible and try not to be forced back into reliving the moment yet again. Asides from that, she could spend her time in the group doing whatever she wanted.

She started looking at everyone in the room. By now all of them looked familiar and she knew each of them by face, but she reckoned that she’d only be able to name Chaeyoung, Dahyun and a couple of the loudest. And Sana.

Why did Tzuyu want to look at her so much? Tzuyu herself didn’t know. Gazing once more at the girl who had been in her head so much recently, she allowed herself just once to broach the topic in her mind. Nothing seemed to fit. She couldn’t understand why she was acting this way, nor why she felt some sort of pull towards the other girl. As she was pondering the questions she hadn’t found the answers to, Tzuyu became painfully aware that she was, once again, staring. Last time that hadn’t gone too well, so instead she switched back to the discussion, shoving the niggling doubt back into the darkest corner of her mind to deal with later.

“...testing some sort of satellite technology. They’ve already started trials and I’ve…”

“We already have satellite television, genius. Why are they testing stuff that we’ve already got?”

Dahyun had interrupted one of the more quiet members of the group. He looked totally and utterly exasperated, signalling that he had been drawn into the “conversation” a long time ago and therefore was more than a little tired with the seemingly never-ending sugar rush that Dahyun was on.

“ _Apparently_ they’re looking at tracking powers and the use of them. Right now it’s not very reliable but they say that it could revolutionise the way we catch freaks.”

A look was shot the Tofu’s way.

“That kind of technology we don’t have right now.”

At least she had the decency to look slightly embarrassed and be a little quieter. Within the time that Dahyun wasn’t shouting (for once) the others started shooting questions about the satellites. It was revealed that the government had started testing a couple of weeks ago and that the press had been informed only a few days prior. A couple of other members started to chip in, answering questions when the guy that bought it up admitted that he didn’t know and Tzuyu felt her attention waning once more.

Until she heard something that made her start.

“I’ve heard that the government is screening people before they go to uni so that they won’t educate future terrorists blah blah blah. Surely they’ll just nab them there because you catch the freaks that get checked and then investigate the people that don’t apply. Simple. No need for some stupid system that’ll take years before it can even notice something freaky.”

It left a bad taste in her mouth, despite how much she tried to ignore it. Obviously it wouldn’t affect her - she was normal after all - but she couldn’t shake the feeling of injustice that had started to settle. What if there were peaceful freaks? Sure, she hadn’t heard of many (actually any) but that didn’t mean that they couldn’t be out there. In fact, if they did exist they would have to go unnoticed or else they'd be arrested. The rest of Tzuyu's life balanced on going to university and then getting a good job afterwards. No uni: No job, no money, no food. She’d have nothing left to live for if that happened (if she were one of them). Nobody deserved that. Especially people who hadn't done anything to begin with.

She had a feeling that she was the only person in the room that held that opinion. Faintly she could hear some of the others declaring how much the freaks deserved it and how they weren't really human anyways. Worst of all she could hear Dahyun agreeing. One of her best friends. Chaeyoung, the other best friend, wasn’t doing anything to change the conversation either, so she probably felt the same way. Tzuyu felt sick. Suddenly the air had turned stifling and the room had started spinning. She wondered if they could see her opinion on her face or the heat rising to fog her mind. She needed to get out.

But she couldn’t. She sat there, staring down at her hands playing together nervously in her lap and trying her best to seem nonchalant for the rest of the meeting, wincing internally at every comment from her companions.

All too late it was over and Tzuyu tried her best to refrain from sprinting out of the room at the first opportunity. Instead, she gathered her things as quickly as possible, conscious of her shaking hands and panicky breathing and then speed walked out of the room, only slowing down when she was safely through it and into the corridor.

Only she wasn’t safe. Dahyun grabbed her arm.

If she had taken some time to think, maybe Tzuyu would have noticed that her friend didn’t look at all threatening or accusatory in any way but she hadn’t done that. As soon as she felt someone grab her she had panicked, picturing vividly the expressions on people’s faces as they expressed their utter hatred for the freaks and imagining their faces twisting towards her and condemning her for the way she had felt in that room. She had broken Dahyun’s grip in a heartbeat and launched herself away from the other girl in a mad rush, desperate to get away.

She didn’t remember anything after that until she was in the toilets, retching as bile made its way into her mouth. She threw up a couple of times and then shrank onto the floor, too drained to do anything apart from notice the tears dripping off her face and quickly wipe them away when she heard someone enter.

Chaeyoung had seen her sprint off after Dahyun had gone to talk to her. Together, very worried about the unexpected behaviour, the friends tried to follow Tzuyu but lost her around one of the corners (Chaeyoung blamed those damned long legs) and so they decided to split up and look for her. While having your friend find you shivering in a grimy toilet stall with your sick still very evident in the bowl and around your mouth was not a pleasant experience, it did mean that Tzuyu didn’t have to explain herself at all. She could spend all the brainpower that she would have had to used for coming up with an explanation on maintaining her concentration instead, allowing her to manage not to wince when her friend wrapped her arms around her still shaking body and lead her away.

 


	4. Stop It Stop It

At least her period brought some sense of normalcy into her life. The feeling seemed odd, removed - almost as alien and isolated as the school halls when they were packed and you were the only one not moving or talking. A bloated, red stain had stretched itself across the pad and tainted it, removing the clinical, sanitised smell and replacing it with something an almost-unbearable odor. Tzuyu crinkled her nose in disgust. She hated this.

Not many people would be glad to see their period come; it’s messy, it’s painful and, most importantly, it leaves you feeling rubbish. The first day is always the worst with the god-awful stomach cramps that last for hours and the settling urge to curl up in bed clinging to a hot water bottle seems to mock you as you have to sit through hours of classes and other situations where this simply just isn’t possible. However, this time it did prove itself to be somewhat useful. She didn’t have to explain the nitty-gritty of why she was actually sick at school in the first place; all she had to do was mention it and suddenly all conversation would _mysteriously_ be cut short.

Even her parents seemed to buy the excuse. Despite her usually not being that badly affected by her every-timely period, it did seem reasonable to everyone that the level of discomfort could be variable and that this was just a horrid one. Then again, her parents didn’t see her a lot of the time anyways since she was always busy studying, or completing homework, or eating, or studying some more, or exercising, or napping in the short times that she had between all that. She wasn’t the easiest person to deal with either: She would often express herself in such a way that it led to misinterpretations or answer a question with a rude response when in fact there was no malice in her intent. Due to this, her parents often stuck to safe topics, such as school, where they were least likely to be yanked into the line of fire.

Besides, her parents didn’t get a lot of rest themselves - what with managing the dermatology clinic whilst juggling the coffee shops with over-burdened hands - they just didn’t have enough time to think up a more interesting subject of conversation before something came along once more and they turned back to the world, forgetting family life until they were confronted with it once more.

They certainly weren’t strangers, but they certainly weren’t the closest either.

Tzuyu looked back at the pad, quickly ripping it off her underwear and replacing it with a fresh one lest she stare at the sight of her own blood any longer. She’d have to do the same thing over and over for the next week.

It was almost like a metaphor for her: She had been fine - relatively fresh and new to the world - but then suddenly she had been tainted, broken as the world came knocking on her door and then knocked a roof down above her head. And yes, maybe she could try starting anew, maybe rebuild her life completely rather than erecting temporary walls that would fall if only not for the relentless nature of the breaking. The nightmares would always return and she would always shatter in their wake until she could get past this. Maybe one day she’d stop waking up in the middle of the night in odd places in the house and maybe one day she’d finally be free...of whatever her chains were. She didn’t know. And no-one else would. If that dreadful meeting had taught her one thing it was that she needed to mind what she said and remain clear of any suspicion for as long as possible - potentially her whole life.

**~~~**

Chaeyoung was incredibly huggy today. Tzuyu had walked into the classroom to see her hanging off a slightly perturbed classmate, probably telling them about some japanese phrase that she’d attempted to memorise (although how successfully was another matter entirely). Dahyun was nowhere to be seen and so Tzuyu sat down at her own desk, intending on taking the time to appreciate her moment of calm but instead spending it trying to dispel the doom and gloom that had settled due to her secrets unsuccessfully.

Then, Dahyun had come in and she was trapped in a conversation which, frankly, she just didn’t want to be in. Chaeyoung came over and joined them too, after eventually detaching herself, and the Tofu took the chance to comment on her new haircut: A change that Tzuyu had noticed herself prior, but hadn’t mentioned. She was watching her words in every response that she made, careful to not reveal her inner turmoils with a careless slip up.

“What about you Chewy? Fancy cutting your hair like mine?”

Chaeyoung was in her element apparently. It had been so long since she’d spared a moment to look up from her sketchbook that Tzuyu had almost forgotten that she also had a playful and cheeky side to her as well. The cute boyish haircut really did suit her, accentuating her face which made her seem handsome and drawing a handful of long glances - although most were probably just out of curiosity rather than anything else. But would that haircut suit Tzuyu?

In her mission to focus entirely on making sure that she didn’t mention something that would give her away - such as _‘I’m not sure that they’ll cut a sympathiser’s hair.’_ she just let loose the first thing that came to her mind.

“No. I don’t think that style would ever look good.” _On me_ , she meant, but obviously hadn’t uttered it. Just before she was about to correct her mistake, however, the other two burst out into grins as they misidentified the comment as a part of their usual banter.

“OOOOH SAVAGE!” Dahyun grinned, enjoying herself thoroughly. “The maknae is back at it again with dissing Chae!”

“My hairstyle isn’t that bad!” Protested Chaeyoung back, trying desperately to keep that cheeky smile off her face but losing the battle spectacularly as her dimples started to appear.

Tzuyu just kept her face blank before allowing a small smile to appear after a few seconds. They expected that of her. Inside, however, her mind was whirring as she tried to reconcile what she knew with the smiling faces around her. These people were her friends: They had made that very clear from the very beginning and had only proven that they were trustworthy and compassionate since them. They would never dream of hurting there and would probably swear an oath to protect and help each other if somebody put the idea into Dahyun’s head yet Tzuyu also remembered what they were like in the club. Surely they wouldn’t hate her...right? Right? The level of confidence she had in her friends did nothing to combat the uncertainty she was beginning to harbour in herself. If she did anything as much as hint that she felt differently and she had judged their characters wrong then she could be swinging from a tree the next morning. The thought had her shivering as the others warmly exchanged polite insults at each other, occasionally trying to get Tzuyu to join in.

“At least my hair doesn’t resemble a rainbow!”

Dahyun actually looked outraged.

“I’ll have you know that it looks _amazing_.”

“No it doesn’t.”

“Yes it does.”

“No it doesn’t.”

“Yes it does.”

“No it doesn-”

“WELL YOU CAN’T EAGLE DANCE LIKE I CAN.”

Dahyun then proceeded to show this off, gaining the attention of a couple of the other people in the classroom who were absolutely bemused. However, she mostly only received a quick glance from the majority of the people in the room since they were already accustomed to her antics. The smile that had snuck up on Tzuyu’s face stayed there for a while, right until they entered the club room.

Last time had been enough for Tzuyu but she knew it would look odd if she suddenly started to avoid the sessions like a pit filled with hissing, venomous snakes. It was a very tight-knit group and someone’s absence would stand out like a sore thumb to all the other members. Or at least to her two closest friends. Dahyun and Chaeyoung would notice if something were up and the last thing she wanted to do was be confronted by them or have them realise that something was up. No, best to keep them in the dark and pretend that she was okay. That’s what she had been doing anyways, so there should be no change.

Still, she felt awful.

~~~

“My Dad said that there was a police meeting today. They’re currently checking out if the runaway has connections with local gangs and stuff. You know, like the Mafia.” Mark leaned back, looking pleased with himself.

“The Mafia is Italian, dumbass.” Jackson lightly slapped Mark on the head, despite his protests.

“I didn’t mean the Mafia specifically...hey! Get off! Ow!”

“Sure you did.”

Chaeyoung took this opinion to voice her thoughts.

“Why? Do they specifically have any leads on the runaway being linked to gangs?”

“Well,” Mark started, rubbing his head slightly. “Not reaaaaaally. But freaks are all sorta thugs, aren’t they? Besides, they probably have had some sort of help to be able to avoid the police this long. Who else would help them?”

“Maybe they’re just really sneaky?” Dahyun suggested, waving her arms in a comical way that was supposedly meant to mimic ninjas or some other deadly assassin but instead almost derailed the conversation if not for some input from the other side of the room.

“That’s a fair point.” One of the others had spoken up: A boy with short cropped hair and a slightly devilish look playing in his eyes and curling up on his lips. “The freak probably has help - they’d have to be the backstabbing type though.”

Jennie scoffed. “So basically no morals at all then?”

“I still think they’re just really good at not being found,” Dahyun tried, face scrunched up as if she were in deep thought. “Like they’re hide-and-seek masters? Sometimes I can’t find Chaeyoung or Tzuyu anywhere and we’re not even playing it!”

Tzuyu cringed slightly. Now some of the attention had been pushed onto her and Chaeyoung, almost forcing one of them to say something. _What if she gave herself away?_ Even the mere idea of uttering words whispered of danger and suffering at the hands of her classmates should she make an error. Trying to keep her face neutral, she averted her eyes to Chaeyoung, praying that the dwarf would make some sort of retort.

“Well not all of us can have neon hair, which makes us a lot harder to spot.”

“As I said earlier, my hair is _Fabulous_ , with a capital F. _Your hair_ though, is really bor-”

Before those two could get into another argument about hair styling, the devilish boy cut them off, sharply bringing the conversation back to the topic much to the dismay of Tzuyu. She had almost allowed herself to enjoy the brief interlude where the topic wasn’t so volatile.

“Say they do have the help of some gangs,” the boy started. “How would that even work?”

She went back to looking at people as the words began once more. As her eyes drifted over face after face, she payed very little to what was transgressing, falling back into a half-trance and occasionally listening to someone’s point.

When she glanced over at Dahyun, expecting the Tofu to jump into the conversation any second, Tzuyu received a nasty shock. The realisation planted a stone in her stomach as she recognised with a start that Dahyun’s eyes were fixed steadily in her direction, a small frown affixed to the girl’s lips. _Had she somehow spotted dissent on her face?_ She had been already been shifting in her seat due to the dull ache caused by her period but now nervousness joined the mix, creating a nice, panicky mess.

She had to say something.

Something to get her out of suspicion.

But what?

“Even if that is true, what would even be in it for the peop-”

“Are you even sure the gangs would work with a freak?” Tzuyu started, cutting off the previous speaker. “Even criminals must have some sort of standards.”

Silence.

“ _Yeah_ ,” Mark snapped. “Yeah they would. My dad’s seen a bunch of people who would throw their friends under the bus just for the sake of gaining power.”

“But this isn’t about their friends - it’s about the freaks. You’d basically not have to be human to want to even think about working with them.”

“Still some people would.”

“I really don’t think so.”

“They would for the power.”

“Who’d want to be like those freaks?”

“Not _like_ them. They’d just want to use them - like dogs.”

“Leave dogs out of this. Those freaks don’t even deserve to be treated like _cockroaches_ ,” Tzuyu spat, choking back the sick climbing her throat to force more words out. “You’d have had to ripped out your heart a long time ago to even consider such a thing.”

Everyone was looking at her by now, watching her as more precarious thoughts tumbled from her mouth as soon as she could think them. It was like a veil had come down on her mind for about a minute, obscuring her vision slightly and preventing her from seeing the situation clearly enough to exercise some self control.

“...in fact, they should probably arrest the people who assist them and lock them up in jail with the freaks. That’ll teach them a lesson...or something…”

Tzuyu trailed off: The veil had shifted slightly and consequently she realised how obvious she was being. Surely no-one would hate the freaks _that much_...but then again they did kill hundreds of people, so it wouldn’t be not justified…

Even so, she realised that her reaction probably was only a little short of hysterical and very unlike her usual behaviour which was sit as still as possible and contribute only when called upon. Dahyun was no longer staring at her though, opting to inspected the intricacies of the carpeted floor by her feet instead. Chaeyoung did look a bit perplexed but Tzuyu also thought she saw a dangerous flash of worry spark through her eyes so she promptly pretended that she hadn’t saw and tried to look as inconspicuous as possible for the rest of the meeting. Her eyes didn’t leave the floor until she was through the doorway and into the relatively safe corridor where she allowed her head to lift slightly and turn to watch a certain figure retreating down it in the opposite direction.

~~~

This sleep walking was getting dangerous. One moment she was fine, off in a deceptively calm-ish dreamland filled with things that drifted in and out of sight at a leisurely pace. Then she woke up.

On the roof.

The wind nipped at her ankles and blew on her toes with its icy-breath, howling and screaming whilst it tore at her pyjamas that were not even slightly thick enough to survive the onslaught. Her ears rushed with the sheer noise; the tiles beneath her feet began to shift and slide, trying to pull her towards the edge and ever closer to the ground, swaying impossibly far below her. _How did she even manage to get up here?_ She didn’t know. Her fingers felt stiff and heavy; her jaw clenched uncomfortably as her body began to shake, no longer under her control. Even the few tears that escaped her clenched eyes felt the cold, trailing icy tracks down, down, down her cheeks.

She didn’t deserve this, she just wanted to sleep. God, she was so tired.

_Why me?_ She thought. _**Why me?**_

And then she found herself back in her room, shivering from the imaginary cold and clutching her arms to her torso in a feeble attempt to protect her from the draft from underneath the door. Even now her mind tried to trick her, tried to coerce her into believing that she could be still on that roof, allowing herself to slip over the edge whilst secure in a delusion of warmth.

And that’s when she broke down.

Tzuyu’s body deflated and she sank down a wall until her bum hit the floor, sobs fully taking control and causing her to gasp and hiccup every few seconds. The effort of keeping them soundless was no small thing but the swirling darkness around her provided plenty motivation with her mind still conjuring up frightening images of monsters and other such dastardly creatures that could be lurking in the house with her. Eventually she came to a stop, too tired to continue - she didn’t even have the energy to wipe her running nose with her sleeve.

She didn’t want to continue like this. She couldn’t carry on as if nothing had happened and do nothing apart from everything she had to do normally. This had to stop.

As she was half-sat, half-slumped against the wall, she felt strangely clear-minded. This all started because of the incident. Maybe, just maybe, she could get some closure if she could just face what started this all. It was all that freak’s fault. That piece of scum lowlife that attacked the pool in the first place and ruined her life. Maybe it was the thought of them still being at large and being able to do what they had done to her to others or again to her that really kept this alive. If the police were able to catch them, perhaps then she would finally be able to sleep without fear.

There was only one problem. The police seemed, for a lack of a better word, incompetent. Each meeting Mark came with different stories of new leads and information but so far none of this had actually yielded anything of substance besides another topic to discuss at excruciating length. If she wanted the freak to finally be caught, she’d have to do something more than just hope they fell into the police’s hands. Maybe she would have to involve herself, at least just finding out information and then somehow feeding that back, possibly though Mark judging from how freely he would speak at the meetings.

She vowed to herself that she would bring the attacker to justice as she let herself drift back into a troubled sleep, filled with all the usual torture.

 


	5. What Can I Do?

To put it simply, Tzuyu had absolutely no idea what she was doing. She had woken up in her bed the next morning, both drive and confusion rising in her as she slowly came to. It was only later that she realised that someone must have moved her to it during her slumber - which explained why she hadn’t had to experience the joys of a crick in her neck or an aching back when she pulled herself up.

Breakfast was the usual: rice and soup in the small kitchen before rushing upstairs and getting everything ready in time to go to school. The journey passed without her noticing much and she made it to school in good time. The classes were the same, the work the same, the hagwons the same. Nothing was really out of place.

Late that night, she sat there at her computer, staring blankly at the cursor blinking back at her. Try as she might, she couldn’t find any of the words to ask, let alone find the answers she needed to even start.

~~~

The next day didn’t quite go as smoothly as the one before it.

Everything stated exactly the same: Same breakfast, same journey, same classes, same homework. She was quite distracted as well, finding herself in random places after some wandering whilst in deep thought.

The club time was when everything really started derailing.

“-and so I think it would be better if we discussed it in pairs or small groups this time and then reported back to everyone afterwards. That way I think we’d all have a chance to speak,” Jennie shot a look at Dahyun who seemed blissfully ignorant at the slight malice directed at her. “We’ll decide everything by numbering.”

With that, she started giving people numbers. Dahyun was a number 4, Chaeyoung was 5 and Tzuyu herself was 7. When she was halfway through the number of people in the room, Jennie started back at one again and it didn’t take a genius to figure out that the people with the same numbers would probably be paired together.

Quickly counting forwards, Tzuyu’s eyes landed on the person that she would be her partner.

She couldn’t decide if she was either really lucky or really unlucky.

After everyone had a number, everyone went to find their pair. Tzuyu walked up to Sana, feeling all sorts of nervousness play games within her.

“Umm...hi? Are you a seven?”

The girl turned around, mischievous grin appearing on her face. Holding eye-contact was a special kind of impossible when she looked like that, and yet Tzuyu felt trapped in her eyes, rooted to the spot as her doom finally addressed her.

“Maybe, but many people have told me that I’m a 10.”

A second. Then Tzuyu felt herself spluttering for some kind of response - any response - whilst fighting to keep a blush from storming full-force onto her face.

“I-umm...okay? I just meant-”

“I guess we’re a pair then! Come on, let’s sit over here!”

Tzuyu blinked, struggling to keep up with everything that had just happened. She swore that Sana was giving her a serious case of whiplash and what was even more grave was the fact that a tiny part of her seemed to like it.

She moved over to sit down opposite her.

“So...umm...hey, I’m Tzuyu.”

“I know.”

“Oh, I thought you might have forgotten.”

“Nope, silly! I might seem clumsy and a little bit stupid but I’m only one of those things!”

And with that Sana gently slapped her on the arm in a joking manner, feigning indignation. Tzuyu almost jumped away, startled at the unexpected contact. She knew that the other girl was probably waiting for her to reply and so cast her mind back to what they were supposed to be doing.

“Shouldn’t we be discussing the topic for today...or something?”

“Oh don’t be such a downer! Let’s talk a little bit more!”

“Are you sure? I mean they’re going to check-”

“They’re not gonna check that we’ve done it - they’ll get into an argument as soon as they even mention the topic.” She scooted over so that she was now right next to her and then stole her arm, snuggling her face into it. “I just want to spend some time getting to know my Chewy.”

Tzuyu felt her whole face burst out into a blush, an angry, shouting red that commanded attention and was about as subtle as a rampaging elephant. She definitely wasn’t used to people invading her personal space but she did admit to herself that it wasn’t half bad: Sana seemed to smell like fresh fruit and the human contact, while kind of tight, gave her a rush of something inexplicable that felt like the risk of being caught with her hand in the proverbial cookie jar.

Trying not to draw attention to how red her cheeks were, she tried being suave and just playing off how nervous she felt.

“Chewy?”

“It’s my new nickname for you!”

Sana had responded to the deadpan in Tzuyu’s voice with 100% pure concentrated enthusiasm, bouncing up and down a little where she sat. Her face seemed to have lit up like a lightbulb and Tzuyu wondered idly if she came with an off switch since she seemed so energetic.

“A nickname, huh,” She muttered, lost momentarily. “Well the others already call me that anyways so you can’t really call it new…”

“Aw you’re cute.”  Sana said,cutting Tzuyu off as she patted the teen on the head rather unexpectedly. “So Chewy, what do you like?”

Her cheeks felt like they were permanently stained red and the vandal responsible was currently waiting for an answer, curious gaze awakening all sorts of butterflies.

“Errrrmmmm...music?”

“Everyone likes music,” she whined in response. “Come on, tell me something that you actually mean.”

Deciding that honesty was the best tactic, Tzuyu replied with “I don’t know, I don’t think about it too much.”

Sana looked despondent, pulling away slightly.

“Well, what type of music do you like then?” She asked, voice laced with a little bit of disappointment.

Again she said “I don’t know, I don’t really listen to anything specific” and this time Sana visibly deflated a little, presumably taking her bluntless and lack of actual response as a cue to stop talking. She sighed and let go of Tzuyu’s arm completely, opting to sit with some space in between them. Just as the conversation was about to die, Tzuyu was hit by some inspiration and an actual answer she could say.

“Thinking about it,” she began, voice hesitant and slightly too quiet, “I really like it when you’re alone and you have some time to just listen to a song without headphones - but not just any song - one of those songs that has a lot of reverb in them. That way, if you close your eyes it seems like the sound is bouncing off the walls and echoing everywhere: It’s like you’re the only person in an empty world and nothing is there to worry you or find you.” She looked at Sana, noticing that the girl had a weird look in her eyes that she couldn’t quite figure out. “I don’t know really, some people might find it odd but I find the idea calming. Umm...yeah.”

She had trailed off, waiting for the other girl to respond in some way. Finally, after a few seconds of reflection, a huge grin burst onto her face and she practically bounded back into Tzuyu’s space again.

(How she managed to achieve this whilst still being crossed-legged was a mystery to Tzuyu).

“That’s so...deep!” So she wasn’t weirded out then. Tzuyu breathed a sigh of relief. “I like happy music personally, because you can dance to it and it’s happy.”

Tzuyu scoffed, relaxing a little somewhat.

“You like happy music...because it’s happy? Isn’t that a given?”

Sana pouted, doing all sorts of things to Tzuyu’s heart in the process.

“Yaah! I said I liked dancing to it also! I just have a good time doing it…”

She trailed off and it wasn’t apparent why. Suddenly the japanese girl leaned impossibly further into the other’s space, getting far closer than necessary with a different look in her eyes. “Maybe I’ll show you sometime…”

The intensity then seemed to be turned up to smoldering.

“... _if you’re good_.”

Blink. Blink blink.

No. Words.

She had no words.

Her mind had promptly bid her farewell, waving goodbye and taking any hope of a witty comeback or maintaining any sort of pride with it. She probably could have successfully cosplayed as a tomato with little effort at this point, although the spluttering and panic to come up with anything to say was a little out of character.

(Un)Luckily, they were called back into the main group a few seconds later, saving Tzuyu from certain embarrassment at the hands of a certain suggestive gaze. As had earlier been predicted, there was little productive conversation that actually happened before an argument broke out between Dahyun and someone else on the topic of odd socks and whether or not the perpetrators of such an abhorrent crime should be punished or not.

Tzuyu spent most of that time in a daze, still trying to process exactly _what_ had just happened.

She was unusually early to the next meeting, making extremely good time from her class. It seemed like only one moment she was several floors away and then the next she was just turning the corner to see the doors but that might have been due a certain...distraction running through her head.

Not many people were here yet but Tzuyu couldn’t help but notice that Sana was not present yet. Staring into the near distance, she wondered if the girl just wasn’t here yet or if she wasn’t coming at all today.

When she finally did come in Tzuyu found that her eyes were drawn to the japanese girl - as if there were some mysterious attraction pulling them together…

She shook her head. Attraction had some romantic connotations and she was definitely, _definitely_ not interested in the other girl in that way at all...it was like...like...like the pull between two magnets, an invisible force of nature that was impossible to fight and dragged its subjects helplessly closer and closer.

_Sana herself is like a force of nature_ , she thought idly to herself, _she’s unpredictable, dangerous and really, really beauti-_

Only when the girl in question made eye contact with her did Tzuyu realise that she had been staring. Those chocolate brown eyes made Tzuyu feel something like a fish flopping about in her chest, almost completely numbing the shot of panic with a dash of mortification that had jolted through her when she processed that the other girl had definitely noticed her and was now heading her way.

A stray chair leg came between them, however, and sent Sana tumbling to the floor. Before she could even get up to react Sana was on her feet again giggling away whilst plonking herself in one of the seats next to Tzuyu.

“Hey Tzuyu <3”

Although it would be impossible to convey an emoticon through spoken language, Tzuyu marvelled at Sana’s ability to somehow communicate a heart through her eyes and the tone of her voice.

“Are you alright? It’s not a good sign if someone is delirious right after hitting their head.”

Sana laughed.

“Aww is my Chewy concerned? I’m fine, just a little shaken that’s all.”

Just then Chaeyoung came in.

“Are you sure? I was positive that you were...trippin’”

And then she was laughing too, slapping her knee repeatedly and sitting down on the other side of Tzuyu, grabbing her notebook while said girl groaned and Sana looked a little perplexed.

“Don’t mind her, she just hasn’t figured out that she isn’t funny yet.”

“Hey! I’ll have you know I’m very funny!”

“No you’re not,” Tzuyu argued back before turning to Sana and lowering her voice a little. “We call her Nojam sometimes.”

“Yah!”

Sana giggled again, although this time it was their antics and not her own clumsiness. Tzuyu took a second and just listened to the sound, carefully committing it to her memory as it looped over and over in her head. It was... _nice_.

“Don’t be too mean to Chaeyoung, I’m sure she has some funny jokes to tell.” The young artist sent a smug look at Tzuyu, choosing a very positive interpretation of the Japanese girl’s words. “Anyways, don’t you want to hear about my day so far?”

And so Tzuyu got lost in Sana’s sparkling eyes as she told tales of Chemistry and failed experiments.

“-and then I had to explain to the teacher how I had managed to knock over three different chemicals and then set them alight all in the space of one minute. Long story short, I’m now banned from even breathing near any chemicals.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah. The teacher was pretty annoyed. Anyways, how was your day?” She said, reaching out for Tzuyu’s hand as she addressed her.

“Not much, really. It was just a normal day.” She hoped that the other girl didn’t notice how flustered she was.

Before the conversation could continue and Sana could launch into a story about how she managed to get banned from her PE lessons the meeting was started with the conclusion that splitting into small groups didn’t work. As the discussion was started for that day, Tzuyu realised that her heart was beating really fast and the reason for that was the hand still holding hers and the smile of the girl next to her.

~~~

Days upon days flashed by. In that time, Tzuyu noted that Sana and her started spending a disproportionate amount of time together. If you had asked the girl nicely enough, perhaps she would have recounted one of Sana’s many escapades involving the faculty members and various school equipment, especially since she now had several committed to her memory.

Her research, however, was as fruitless as it was at the start. She had to be careful what she typed or said, lest she draw any attention and anything that she did find was complete rubbish or wasn’t actually helpful. The only comfort it gave her was that she was doing _something_ , however useless it was, and it was a sort of way to keep her mind off the monsters late at night.

But there was something bothering her, and it was about her quickly developing relationship with the Japanese girl. She knew she just wanted to be friends, but when she gave her _those looks_ she couldn’t help but wonder if there was something more or if there _could be_ something more. But that would be silly: they were both girls and stuff like that wouldn’t work. Anyways, she definitely just wanted to be friends...finding her eyes drawn to her and looking for her when she was out of sight was just her being excited to become better friends with her...right?

She just wanted to be friends. Yeah. Friends.

~~~

That night was one of those rare occasions where the family would eat together. They all sat at the table: Her mother, father and older brother all there, chewing quietly on their food while the younger sibling pushed the ongoing lines of conversation round her plate. Tzuyu didn’t really want to be here, didn’t want to spend her time immobilised in her place, rationing her sparse food and replies to prolong the time she didn’t have to speak. She just wanted to be alone but her father was determined to spite this.

“So Tzuyu,” he started, just beginning to pick up another mouthful with his chopsticks. “How was your day?”

She tried to deflect the question.

“It was okay.”

“Which subjects did you have?”

“The usual ones.”

“Did anything exciting happen?”

“No.”

Her mother decided to try this time.

“Did you learn about anything interesting?”

“For the last time, no, there is nothing about my school day or my day in general that I want to talk about!” She snapped, frustrated neither parent would leave her alone.

The response was immediate: She saw anger begin to grow in her father’s eyes.

“Don’t talk to your mother like that!”

“Just let me eat my food _for goodness sake_.” Why wouldn’t they just leave her be? It was obvious that she didn’t want to speak to them.

“That behaviour is unacceptable.” Her father barked.

“We were just trying to ask you a question,” her mother added, trying to dissipate some of the building tension. “We weren’t interrogating you or anything.”

“Well _I_ was just trying to eat.”

“That gives you no reason to be so- _rude_ and to disrespect your mother like that. You need to learn some proper manners.” Tzuyu felt a distinct fury bubble up in her, fueled by her father’s words. “It’s all that time you spend locked up in that room of yours with those headphones on, dead to the world. Maybe if you spent more time with actual people and actually talking you would learn some decency.”

“You two were being rude first! I was trying to eat and you two kept on interrupting me!”

“We were just trying to talk to you,” her mother interjected, a little exasperated but sounding somewhat amused. “We’re not trying to be your enemies here, we’re just trying to ask you about your day.”

“Well I have nothing I want to tell you about my day!”

“Wow sis, was it really that bad?” Her brother added, a teasing tone on his lips and a sparkle in his eyes. “It’s alright, you can tell us. After all, sharing is carin-”

His mother cut him off before he could finish.

“Oh don’t you start.” She snapped.

The father also joined in, glaring his son down from the other side of the table.

“That’s not helpful so just stay out of it.” His gaze shifted back to Tzuyu once more and she met it with a defiant one of her own for a couple of seconds before looking down, trying to control herself, though in what way she did not know. “As for you, _young lady,_ we’ve been trying to give you your own space, especially recently. However, we spend a lot of time working and providing for you, so just talk to us for a minute. Can you spare us a few moments in your day?”

Tzuyu imagined she heard some patronising behind his tone and the way he said things just rubbed her completely up the wrong way. The rational part of her brain told her that she should deescalate the situation now, but the emotional side told her to stand her ground, dig her heels in and wait for them to give up.

“I don’t want to.”

She knew she’d made the wrong decision instantly. Her mother looked exasperated, her brother entertained and her father...well, he was positively fuming.

“That’s it. We’ve tried to be kind but that’s obviously not enough. Your grades are slipping, you refuse to talk to us - you just spend all your time hiding up in that room of yours, but no more!”

“I don’t want to talk to any of you! I just want to be alone!”

But he carried on regardless, either not hearing her words or choosing to not acknowledge them.

“The problem must be that you’re getting distracted so here’s what we’ll do: We’ll take your headphones away until your grades improve and you feel like talking.”

“I’m not getting distracted!”

“Well whatever it is your headphones will stay with me until you can figure it out. It’s not often that we get to spend time together as a family but you seem more interested in getting away from us. Your brother is perfectly fine with sitting here and just chatting to his old parents for a while so why can’t you?”

With that he planted his palms on the table and stood up abruptly, causing some of the crockery to rattle with the force, before storming out and thundering up the stairs towards her room. They sat in silence for a couple of seconds before her brother broke the quiet.

“That could have gone better.”

“You shouldn’t have riled him up you know,” her mother added, gently scolding her. “He just wants to talk to you but now you’ve gone and made him upset.”

They didn’t understand. The rational side of her brain had long since evacuated, opting to wait for the danger to fully pass before returning to its place, leaving her emotional side to fully captain her. Right now, it was steering her right in the direction of the rocks.

“It’s not my fault, he’s so unrealistic, expects me to be perfect. Well I’m not and I hate it.” Her mother recoiled, clearly not expecting a retaliation. “And I hate when people think I am. He just wants me to be good so that we look good, you all do.” She now sneered at her focused on her brother and concentrated her anger onto him by sneering. “In fact, you both wish that I was like him, even though he’s utterly pathetic because he’s perfect in your eyes.”

You could see the hurt blossom in his eyes. Tzuyu didn’t care though, not right then. She was too high off the delirious feelings of rage.

“That’s enough Tzuyu, you’ve crossed the lin-”

“No I get it,” Tzuyu interrupted, not interested in obeying her mother. “I’m just the problem child, the stupid one that can’t even sleep properly because she’s weak. I should have just died in the accident- no, I should have never have been born! Then maybe you could all pretend to be worried and then get along with your lives rather than having to pretend forever that I fit in and we’re not fucking messed up!”

“Tzuyu! Don’t Say things like tha-”

She stood up, sending her plate clattering to the floor and shattering it, staining the floor. She didn’t even look at it though, too consumed in the moment.

“Actually, why don’t I just leave? It’ll make you all happier.”

“Don’t you dare!”

“Stop right there and clean that up right this instant!”

She ignored both her brother’s panicked exclamation and her mother’s order and half-walked, half-sprinted out the house, slamming the door behind her before setting off at a sprint. Behind her she could faintly hear her father shouting so she pushed harder, focussing only on getting as far away as possible.

She stopped a few streets later when she realised that they weren’t chasing her. The air rushed in and out of her lungs, constantly working whilst regret rushed into her as her senses finally returned to her slightly. Despite being filled almost to the brim by it, she felt strangely empty.


	6. Fire

 

Her breath turned to mist in the crisp night air as she walked, shoulders hunched, hands stuffed as far into her hoodie’s pockets as she could physically could manage. The material of her clothes feeling pathetically thin against the raw, taut skin of her knuckles, a slight breeze swished by, scooping up most of the heat attached to her body and twirling it away behind her into the solemn street. Smoke danced on her tongue to the tune of the echoes that shadowed in her footsteps, accenting the honks of car horns and the distant murmurs of strangers making up the city’s muted soundtrack.

Maybe it was her fear of returning coupled with the still-simmering flame of anger inside that kept her out here, exploring the twilight in this unknown city, rather than going back and trying to right her wrongs. Yes, they were somewhat unaccommodating and they didn’t understand, but that didn’t excuse her actions and certainly didn’t excuse the way she treated them.

Wisps of people slipped past through memories and back into oblivion as each continued to embark on their own journeys, united only by their complete disregard for one another. No one seemed to notice her, or at least, no one cared if they did.

And she was fine with that.

Even with the air battering at her with frozen limbs, the feeling of pseudo-invisibility was a powerful drug. Without it numbing her somewhat, maybe she wouldn’t have had the strength to actually keep going: After all, despite all her anger and indignation and feeling of injustice, she was still scared witless.

Tzuyu was all too aware of all the sorts of shady people that could be infesting each crooked alley she passed, lurking unseen like stars corrupted by dark clouds of pollution and dirt: A drug dealer, human traffickers, a serial killer - the list went on and on and on and on and on and on and on, only increasing with every rushed minute counted by her heart, hurried glances over her shoulder and the settling feeling of regret.

The further she got, each step she took, the more her reason tried to butt in, pleading with her to return home where it was _safe_ and to ask for acceptance rather than continuing this craziness, driven only her her arrogant pride. What if she were to die out here, alone except for the biting wind? No-one, not even her family, would even realise where she was or that she was in danger until it would be _far_ too late.

All she had to do was go home, apologise, face her parents’ dissapointment and all the shame-

No.

She kept walking.

Cigarette smoke collided with her nostrils, almost knocking her back and causing her bring her guard up immediately. A flash of an orange glow drew her eyes to an alley just in front of her and she noted with dread the barely noticeable shadow of a figure slouched just under the walls of one of buildings. Tzuyu froze, heat coursing through her and addling her mind . She was anchored to the spot with the sheer weight of her thoughts and the possible implications of what could have happened if she hadn’t noticed the hidden figure sooner.   _What was she doing?_

The person didn’t seem to move much, and a normal person might disregard them as just another having a smoke late at night but Tzuyu, blood coursing with adrenaline and wearing terror-tinted glasses, had a note of sense knocked into her by the sudden shock. She couldn’t go forwards, her apprehension of the lurker just as effective as erecting a huge wall in front of her at preventing her forward progress.

She turned around abruptly and walked briskly away, wishing to get as far from the other person as possible. She stumbled over herself in her panic, falling harshly to the floor with a definite thump. Getting back on her feet hurriedly, she pressed forwards once more, looking back briefly at the shadow once more.

It was so dark that Tzuyu couldn’t see the shape shifting, the person pushing themselves off the wall, and straightening up fully. She did, however, see the orange glow vanish the gleaming speckle of light was stabbed out.

A jolt ran through her heart.

She walked faster, hoping that her eyes had deceived her or that she was being too paranoid. Her hoodie did absolutely nothing to ease her back from feeling exposed and she half expected the sharp edge of a knife to slash through the _far too thin_ fabric. She looked back and another burst of electricity plagued her internal organs. On the pavement behind her, strolling carelessly through the night, was someone who hadn’t been there before.

She turned round a corner, hoping that it would somehow deter the follower as she picked up the pace.

A fleeting glance cast over her shoulder confirmed that the figure was still trailing her. When he had reached far enough that the gleam in his eyes was illuminated by the dull glow of the streetlights, she finally started to sprint.

The man behind her swore and then took off after her, the pursuing footsteps unnaturally loud in the night.

Thud.

Thud.

Thud.

He was catching up to her fast.

Thud.

Thud.

Thud.

Thud.

Thud.

Blood rushed around and boomed in her ears, blocking out everything except the thumping impact of her feet on the tarmac and the screeching of her gasps for air as she scrambled away. The once-sparsely populated street now seemed abandoned, leaving the two intruders themselves and the lingering filth as the only witnesses. Tzuyu swerved into an alleyway, trying to lose the pursuer in a panic-fuelled decision and the darkness.

Objects loomed and jumped out. Features of tall structures struck out, threatening to trip her at any moment.

He was still behind her. She kept running.

But she couldn’t. She was never a runner and recently the only exercise she had been getting was the daily walk to school. She wasn’t really unfit but she definitely could be in better shape. There was an awful, ripping feeling in her chest, sparking each time her body shuddered with a breath and her throat was being consumed by the rasping metallic taste on her tongue. Soon she would barely be able to hold herself up.

Tzuyu really regretted this.

And then she was stumbling, tripping up now that she was thinking about running. The guy behind her had slowed down and was speaking into the static of some sort of phone, maybe realising that his quarry was not likely to be racing off into the distance anytime soon. The world tipped on a sharp angle, forcing Tzuyu to lean against the wall for support - her legs certainly weren’t providing any.

It was only in a moment of clarity between the dizziness that she noticed the silver glint at the man’s belt as he stepped ever closer.

_Is this it_ , Tzuyu thought. _Is the way I’m going to die?_

She had often wondered how much she would be missed if she were to just be gone. Her family would definitely be affected, Dahyun and Chaeyoung would be distraught - but who else? Would anyone else care? Some people might notice for a while, but then her memory would fade away and everyone would have forgotten her.

No matter how much she wanted her pain to end, no matter how much she needed a way to escape the terrors and the nightmare that her life had become, she didn’t want this.

A primal, instinctive feeling bubbled up inside her. There were no words to describe what it felt like: The closest that Tzuyu could come to it was as if someone had taken panic, fear, desperation and anger, put them in a blender and butchered them into some alien concoction.

_She didn’t want to die._

**_She didn’t want to die._ **

**_She wasn’t going to die._ **

That feeling erupted and suddenly the man was a ragdoll unnaturally crumpled against the opposite wall. His head slumped at an odd angle and he was stock still - maybe not even breathing - Tzuyu didn’t get close enough to check.

She took off into the night, paying no attention to where she was going and fighting the bile rising in her throat.

_What was that?_

An answer rose, unbidden and snake-like, hissing a sinister possibility straight into her thoughts. _No._

_NonononononononononononononononononoNO!_

She refused to believe what she just witnessed. This had to be another one of her sleepwalking incidents where she’d wake up, relatively safe inside the four walls of her stifling room. This had to be a mistake it had to be.

Tears streaked down her face, running icy streams across it. She only just noticed the shivers that plagued her body and the way that the skin on her fingers had reddened and cracked. Suddenly the need to find answers was relegated to the corner of her mind while she finally processed the fact that she needed to get inside _now_.

She had no idea where she was though.

Spying the glow of a slightly ajar door across the street, she scurried to it, slipping through the gap and into the building. The inside was lit exclusively by candlelight and a single line of pews stood against each narrow wall. On Tzuyu’s left there stood a tired altar, covered by an embroidered cloth that lay draped across it and pooled across the floor slightly in its excess. A single cross crafted out of plain wood stood upon it.

It wasn’t much warmer in here than outside, so she broke herself out of her observation and moved from the spot next to the door.

As she progressed further into the church, moving from pocket of near-warmth to pocket of near-warmth created by the candles, her brain started to faintly register smaller details such as the scent of incense carried by the air and the cracks and bubbles in the paint on the wall.

She went round the altar, reaching her fingers out to feel the material; what had seemed like a rich, luxurious fabric at first turned out to be threadbare and thin, coarse to the touch.

Then reality decided to make an unwelcome appearance, slamming her right back into the present. She dropped to the floor, hands covering her ears, trying desperately to block all the images and accusations out. The tears returned and she felt herself begin to tremble. Her mind felt as if it were saturated with questions, each shouting and yelling and demanding the same answers which she knew she had, but refused to admit.

She could barely even breathe. The room seemed to spin and the light slipped away as she weakly attempted to push the night’s events away.

Minutes inched past. Every second Tzuyu felt like she was balancing on the edge of passing out. Everything ceased to exist except herself for an unmeasurable time.

It wasn’t until much later until she finally came back to earth. Her breathing echoed in her ears and the silence of the church boomed back, silent and still. The air watched her, saw how she huddled into herself and rocked silently.

Just as she had almost talked herself into leaving, someone came in. Their footsteps reverbed off the walls and shattered through everything like shots. Following the sounds, it seemed like they were hurriedly making their way towards the back of the church. They stopped several times and some shuffling could be heard but Tzuyu couldn’t figure out what they were doing.

_They’re probably just a normal church goer_ , the rational part of brain suggested.

The footsteps started up again, urgently stopping and starting but moving towards the her now.

_Or maybe they’re looking for you._

Tzuyu fumbled on a breath. She tried her best to be quiet, closing her eyes and measuring each inhale and exhale whilst being all too aware that her time was most likely coming to a close. Praying that they wouldn’t find her, she leant up against the altar, trying to find comfort in it like one would an old friend...only to find that it wasn’t solid. Muttering several curse words in her head, she narrowly avoided making the loudest thud in human history and found herself partially under an old, slightly worn table. She realised that she had been fooled by the oversized cloth hanging off it like a heavy cloak and tricked into thinking that it was a solid object when there was actually space underneath.

She quickly pulled herself under and replaced the covering while trying to disturb everything as little as possible. She then spent the next few moments straining her ears, as if she could determine whether or not she had been detected. Her heart wrenched in her chest as the steps came closer and closer. The person walked past her hiding place, turned, and stopped right in front of her. _Had they heard?_ But then they moved on, moving further towards the back. There was a squeak of some metal and it sounded like they were opening something. A pause, and then the cupboard (or whatever it was) was closed once more, the person presumably satisfied.

At that moment, a different set of footsteps heralded the arrival of a second person. The original figure’s feet rushed back to the side door and the new character, in gladness or in anxiety Tzuyu did not know.

“You’re here. We haven’t much time.” A deep, thick voice whispered, hoarse with the tension that the air carries in the late night and early morning hours.

“I know. The police have been non-stop on our backs recently.” This voice was lighter, more feminine and carried a mature quality. It too seemed secretive but also seemed forced, as if it wasn’t used to being used all that often. “I know they’ve been riled up ever since the pool incident but they seem especially jumpy tonight.” A sigh could be heard.

“This is almost too dangerous. I had to dodge at least two police patrols - and you know hard that is for me since I have nothing at my disposal apart from my contacts.”

“Well...they have been pretty useful.”

“Not in the middle of the night they’re not. You do realise that I can’t get caught doing this. If I’m found helping you... _freaks_ they’ll question my family and destroy my whole life.”

There was a horrible falling sensation in her chest. If she had had the strength, she might have let loose a gasp and disturbed the hushed voices.

“I know that sometimes the right thing isn’t the safest option but at least you’ve got nothing to lose.”

Tzuyu heard nothing but her own anxious breathing in her own ears for a few beats.

Then the female voice coughed.

“Look, let’s keep this as brief as possible. Have you got the stuff I need? I don’t want to be here any longer than necessary.”

“Errr...yes. It’s here.”

They both hurried in Tzuyu’s direction, returning once more to the squeaky hinges but this time Tzuyu heard them remove something before closing the door as if it had never been opened. A zipper could be heard, probably signifying a backpack being used.

“I probably will lay low for a bit, it’s too risky to go out at the moment. I’ll contact you when we should nex-”

**BANG.**

The doors crashed open and a shout came from the front of the church, startling all its occupants.

“POLICE. HANDS IN THE AIR!”

Several pairs of running feet entered, creating a thunderstorm of noise that commanded the quiet in waves upon waves. Then it was silent save for the cocking of several firearms.

“HANDS IN THE AIR NOW OR WE’LL SHOOT.”

The feminine voice mumbled something. It didn’t go unnoticed by the new arrivals.

“THIS IS YOUR LAST WARNING. WE HAVE ALL THE EXITS SURROUNDED.”

The atmosphere was choking Tzuyu. _What had she got herself into_?

“NOW!” The voice cried out.

There was a whooshing sound and the temperature of the room dramatically increased. There was then some sort of explosion, as if someone had set off a small bomb. The response was immediate: The chatter of gunfire burst into the air, accompanied by more whooshing and shouts erupting into the night. There was another explosion but this time it was much louder, much bigger and much closer to the hidden girl. The table and the very ground shook with the impact and she seemed to cringe back, as if she was all too aware that she might resemble a cheese grater if she tried to leave the relative safety of her cover. The cross had long since clattered to the floor.

Screams, yelled curses and more booms could be heard. The temperature was rising but the gunfire started to be drowned out by more urgent yells and a weird crackling sound.

But Tzuyu didn’t know any of this.

Her eyes only saw darkness and her ears only knew of chaos through a dull recollection. Down, down, down she was sinking, panic getting its claws into her throat as she once more was pinned beneath a falling ceiling, slowed only by the uncaring water that choked her. She writhed about under the table, her flailing arms catching the concealing cloth and lifting it slightly.

Smoke rushed into the space and she spluttered, caught completely unawares but pulled enough from her reverie to experience the danger she was currently in. The airborne ash irritated her eyes, causing them to water incessantly while she coughed and searched for a breath of anything that could vaguely be considered fresh air. There was an abrasive grating at the back of her throat and in her lungs as she crawled out from under the table.

A wall of heat met her. It was like walking straight into an oven.

The smoke choked everything, ascending up towards the crumbling roof. She started to sweat profusely, clothes hanging off her like parasites, the temperature rising sharply as flames sprung up around her. The walls trembled and shook, discarding dust and plaster in their attempts to tear themselves apart. The whole building seemed to be about to come down. Sirens wailed faintly in the distance.

A chunk fell quite near her, slamming into the ground.

She wheezed, scrambling to get away. _This wasn’t happening_.

Another chunk fell, closer this time. Someone nearby screamed out in the haze but it may as well have been in another world. The fire was angry, it was hungry but most importantly it was a predator and it knew exactly how to hunt its victims, isolating each and every one before going in for the kill.

Everything was swaying, all her movements were futile. It was like her body was fighting against her, all her movements painfully slow like they were _that time_. She looked up to see her doom plummeting towards her and this time she’d be crushed; there wasn’t anything that could save her now.

Only it never actually landed on her.

Tzuyu watched as the scene was torn from her eyes and replaced by another. What was once smooth floors and scalding heat morphed into shifting ground and the biting cold. Gulps of fresh air hurt her windpipe. She stumbled and fell, the harsh gravel of the rooftop pooling underneath her outstretched hands and biting into her skin while the wind howled in her face and whipped her hair into a frenzy. Beneath her, in the city below, trails of smoke lazily danced in the air to the tune of far-off police sirens, distant orange glows, and the general commotion and chaos caused that night.

She didn’t have to imagine what it all sounded like up close. She had been there a second ago.

In a moment of clarity she finally realised something that she had been hiding from herself for the past few weeks. It was so horrible, so abhorrent to her that she wished with every molecule of her being that it was false. A lone tear emerged, then was promptly joined by a torrent of others as the inexcusable truth finally sank in.

_I really am one of them._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's the end of the chapters that I have stockpiled but there should be another on its way within the next week or so!


	7. Wake Me Up

(Flashback)

_There wasn’t something inherently special about Sana._

_Sure, she did seem to have a magnetic pull around her, even Tzuyu would admit it herself (she would, however, say it was her charisma and definitely_ _not_ _anything else) but there was nothing substantial that someone could put their finger on to say ‘that is why I want to watch her’._

_Yet there must have been something, otherwise what caused her to seek out Sana’s presence at every subsequent lunchtime that she spent sitting in that small circle. No matter how hard she tried, she’d always catch herself staring, or her gaze drifting steadily in a certain direction once more. And_ **_boy_ ** _did she try. Again and again she would berate herself for getting distracted, would tear her thoughts away from the topic of those chocolate brown eyes and what they were bringing out in her. She almost preferred being tormented by the imaginary demons every night, rather than this! Okay, maybe she wouldn’t prefer that but even still - at least she could dismiss those as purely fictitious whereas having to confront reality…_

_No. There was nothing to confront. She was just still in shock and letting herself get carried away with her imagination. That’s all._

_She never mentioned this to the others. It wasn’t like she didn’t want someone to confide in, no, it was just that she couldn’t bear the thought of potentially losing them, or wrecking the normal-ness between them. As much as she pretended to be indignant whenever Dahyun loudly proclaimed stuff to the class, or when Chaeyoung made one of those_ **_awful_ ** _jokes in front of them, she really did enjoy those moments and had to fight off a smile every time they occurred. Their bond of friendship was a different type of bond to the one she had with her parents, but it was still equally as strong and important to her._

_She literally couldn’t imagine life without them, which scared her more than she’d like to admit sometimes. The weight of her secrets would press on her whenever they’d talk and she’d be reminded of all the things she refused to think about and all the things she wasn’t telling them. Whatever those things were._

 

~~~

 

When the sun’s rays first crept across the sky to caress the ridges and tresses of the clouds she finally crawled back to her waiting parents. Shadows clung to the lower edges of the front door, having been cast by the dregs of morning’s dusk that loitered, still, against the light. They were stark and unwelcome reminders of the night.

She almost couldn’t bring herself to slip through the entrance; the familiar walls threatened to enclose her, trap her with the likely anger that would naturally follow her previous antics.

But what other choice did she have?

She stepped inside. It was almost the time that she’d usually get up at anyways. By now both of her parents would have left the house and her brother would be busying himself with getting ready for whatever he had to do in the morning. It would be okay. She just had to get to her room and she’d be fine.

But alas, fate was not on her side. Waiting, half-slumped over the kitchen table were her parents. They jolted awake when she passed by the door frame in the hall and soon they had noticed her, calling out her name while she stood there, frozen like a deer in headlights.

She wasn’t barrelled over by huge shouts and accusations, however. She found herself enveloped in her mother’s arms, having been the first to rouse herself and scramble out of her chair. Her father soon joined them, both with tears streaming down their cheeks. Their relief bled through into their words, and even when they reprimanded her, asking how she could be so stupid, she didn’t feel any anger emanating from them. Soon the guilt and her own relief caused her own eyes to prickle and she joined them in their crying, all of them in a messy embrace filled with love. They hadn’t seemed to notice her clothes smelling of smoke - or maybe they were just too shocked to care.

When they were happy that she had returned and that they weren’t dreaming, she was sent off to her room, the walls seeming slightly less threatening than they had when she had entered the house about twenty minutes prior.

Her feet dragged her up the stairs, hand brushing against the banister and she leant against her door to creak it open. The bed beckoned and so she lay down, eyes slowly shutting as exhaustion finally made her its own.

When she awoke she was not alone. A silhouette slipped through the crack, crept over to her bed and sat down. The mattress squeaked a little. His hand found her shoulder. It was her brother.

“What are we going to do with you, eh? Little Tzu going and getting us all worried.”

His voice was barely a whisper, quiet as an escaping thought and as level as his stoic image always allowed. She wasn’t sure if he thought she was still asleep but he showed no signs of waiting for her to stir.

“You scared me, you know. I know you can look after yourself but- but when you left and didn’t come back and all that stuff happened I just thought- I thought that you might-”

He cut off abruptly, an almost-indistinguishable sniffle playing across the silence and his cracked voice. The shadow slipped through the doorway once more, passing a small sleeve across its eyes.

He got up and left, leaving her alone to wonder why each breath seemed more stolen than the last.

 

~~~

 

Everyone was talking about the attack that day. It was quietly discussed with feverish secrecy in every nook and cranny: Mumbled by the lockers, muttered against the walls, mentioned in the space between desks.

Each time it was brought up her brain stutterd, saturating with glimpses of dangerous concoctions containing forbidden flashbacks and pure and unbridled, primal fear. Every second was an ambush, sharp cuts between scenes slicing at defences, a brief respite, rushing again, a buzzing siren, shouts, screams, smoke, heaving, glinting iron thoughts, slashing, cutting, can’t see, cutting, slashing, can’t breathe, iron on her tongue, _choke it back._

_Breathe._

_You’re okay._

_Slowly._

_Don’t make a scene._

_You can carry on._

_It will be fine._

_Everything will go back to normal._

She quickly moved away from her frozen state, only a minute or so passing, and finally found her friends. Dahyun was super bubbly today and Chaeyoung was talking about _it_.

Tzuyu didn’t add much to their conversation, merely chipping in to add a comment when really necessary. The other time she spend looking down, trying her best not to cry.

 

~~~

 

With everyone mentioning it and the paralysing fear that had made its home in her stomach, it naturally didn’t take too long until the other two noticed her nervousness.

“We’d better get going - club starts soon.” Chaeyoung said this, pushing off the wall she’d been leaning against. “I’m sure there’ll be lots to talk about this time.”

“W-well then, let’s go then!” Dahyun got up, tripping over her words slightly in her boundless enthusiasm. As a trio they started to walk to their destination - or at least two of them did. The third one, Tzuyu, felt a sinking-sick feeling in her stomach.

_I can’t bear this. I can’t do this._

“You guys go on ahead...I think I’ll...I’ll skip this time.”

The others stopped, Chaeyoung giving her an inquisitive stare; Tzuyu fought the urge to shiver or run and hide at the weird look. _What if she knows?_

But soon the short girl turned away and walked off, not wanting to be late for once. This left just Dahyun and Tzuyu alone. For a minute they just looked at each other or the floor just in front of their feet.

Just when the other girl made her move to leave she stopped, turning around once more and actually meeting Tzuyu’s eyes.

“You alright Tzu?”

Gone was the big smile and the infectious enthusiasm - it was just the two of them and the meter of floor space between them.

“Yeah.” That floor space may as well have been a chasm.

“You sure?” The question was quiet, sincere, as if the girl knew there was something going on - as if she knew Tzuyu had been lying. The implications were terrifying.

“...Yeah, I am.” Hollow. Hesitant. Unconvincing. The other girl wouldn’t accept that answer.

“Oh- okay.” Dahyun paused, as if she had something big on her mind (oh - if only she knew what that was like). “Umm...I guess...I guess I’ll see ya?”

Then she was rushing off and Tzuyu was alone finally.

**But she wasn’t okay at all.**

 

~~~

 

Days passed. Eventually the club came to her.

They’d come up to her in break times, lunch times, just before she’d be leaving at the end of the day, all out of nowhere. Each time they’d ask how she was, what she’d been doing, and, _most importantly_ , when she’d be coming back and each time she’d have to bluff them off, thoughts constantly catching on her every head tilt, flutter of the eyelids, slip and stutter, vague hand gesture and nervous chuckle. It was a routine that she couldn’t afford to mess up but was in itself an oxymoron, requiring to be genuine and unstressed yet making her fake everything under huge pressures.  

Everytime she had to put on this performance a little bit more self-hatred made its home the pit of her stomach and her eyes darkened. She found herself avoiding mirrors, unable to face herself anymore and terrified that someone would be standing there. Sleep was once again avoiding her, her mind instead preferring to screen distorted details of that night on the back of her eyelids whenever she dared try close them.

_The man slumped against the alleyway wall, head lolling limply to one side. She couldn’t help it, she was pulled forwards to look at it._

_Suddenly his body lurched forwards, like a puppet on a string, his limbs sagging yet somehow being held up. Closer and closer, Tzuyu was rooted to the spot as he closed in, the silver glinting at his belt and the demented, twisted smile on his face ringing clashing alarm bells in her head. Where his eyes used to be were empty black pools and sometimes he’d get close enough that she’d suffocate in them, barely registering the fingers clawing at her throat, others she’d stumble away, turning in the darkness only to bump into another zombie-like creature._

Tzuyu disgusted herself. She was so, so _scared._

 

~~~

 

Mark hadn’t come into school that day according to Chaeyoung. 

“-heard some rumours about it. A lot of it didn’t make a lot of sense really - you could tell some stuff had been made up.” She frowned down at her latest sketch, using the worn rubber on the end of her pencil to erase a section before redrawing it. “-but I heard it might be family-issues.”

“Hmmm...could be,” Dahyun added, a lot calmer than usual. “He hasn’t been turning up to the meetings recently.”

“True that...speaking of which, Tzuyu, why don’t you come any more?”

Suddenly they were both looking for her. She racked her brain, trying to find an answer to sate their curious gazes.

“I...errr...I’ve got some stuff on my mind at the moment.”

“Like what?” Chaeyoung said this, setting down her pencil now to properly focus on her friend.

“It just reminds me too much of the accident. I really don’t want to talk about it…”

“But you might feel better if you talk about it.”

Tzuyu was so fed up of being half-terrified, half-desperate all the time. She wanted - she _craved_ the feeling of ignorance just to sleep normally, to act normally and to _be normal_. She wished someone would reach out and understand but at the same time she needed everyone to just leave her alone.

**_She was fine._ **

She wasn’t. But they didn’t need to know that.

“No. No it won’t help.” She snapped, voice dancing on the curt side which Dahyun picked up on.

“Hey, we’re just trying to help and-”

“-and I’m sick of it. I have my reasons okay?” She cut the joke off the girl’s tongue, shutting her up.

“But it’s been months-” Chaeyoung started.

“That doesn’t matter! It won’t help! And do you know why it won’t help? It’s because both of you will _never_ understand what I’m going through right now!” She slammed the desk, punctuating her frustration and causing Dahyun to jump back in her seat slightly. Chaeyoung just glared, staring her down and keeping her in place. Some anger had now slipped into her voice and shined through the wavers and cracks in her efforts to keep it calm.

“We’re trying to understand but you won’t let us! We’re friends and we care about you - I sure as hell don’t like seeing you like this.”

“Oh _sure_ you don’t like seeing me like this. You both don’t really care, you just want to give that impression. You guys don’t even give _a shit_ about me - you just want to make yourselves feel better by ‘tidying up the situation’ so it looks better.” Tzuyu’s chest was heaving now, working frantically to keep up with her spoken thoughts and the air she was expending. A high pitched ringing blacked most senses and squeezed her head.

“We’re not like that! We just want you to be-”

“If we really cared about looks then we wouldn’t even hang out with you!” Dahyun shouted, standing up so she loomed over Tzuyu and cutting Chaeyoung off in the process. “People are talking about you and how weird you’re acting and guess what? We’re also getting affected by the _fucking rumours_ . We’re trying to be here for you but you keep on pushing us away and _pulling. us. down. with. you.”_ She jabbed the girl harshly in the shoulder each time she spat a word out, her happy-go-lucky personality nowhere to be seen. “Heck, people have even started to give _me_ weird looks!”

Tzuyu got off her chair, almost causing it to fall to the floor as she pushed it sideways. She now faced the other girl, only the flimsy desk separating them.

“You can’t help me! You don’t listen!”

“You don’t give us the chance!”

“I did once - but you didn’t _GET IT_!”

Chaeyoung cut in, stepping up to the side of the desk and pushing gently at their shoulders to distance them.

“Then you should try again,” she reasoned, her voice an attempt at soothing. “We’re your friends not your enemies.”

Tzuyu turned to face the third girl.

“You two aren’t concerned at all.” She gestured in Dahyun’s direction. “She likes standing out from everyone else and you only care about your _stupid doodles_ and your _stupid puns_.” Chaeyoung stepped back, hands falling back to her sides and her emotions contorting as she reeled back from Tzuyu’s words. She addressed both of them now. “If you don’t like what it includes then don’t be my friend.”

“Fine, I won’t be,” said Dahyun, pushing the taller girl and then storming off. Chaeyoung didn’t make such a dramatic exit, instead opting to walk back to her desk, pick up her pencil and resume sketching, not once looking anywhere but down.

It was only then that Tzuyu remembered the other people in the room and felt their stares covering her.

**She was being way too obvious.**

 

~~~

 

Even a few weeks later, she was still feeling the absence at her side. Each class she was marooned at her desk, a safe refuge yet stifling with its own secrecy, she craved a badly-formed joke, a short smile, a friendly tussle to clear the stuffy air.

When the influenza jabs came early that year she didn’t think about the ‘myriad’ of reasons why she might need them, nor did she listen to her father’s endless explanations (an annual occurrence which consisted of reading the little information booklet aloud, analyzing each fact on everybody else’s time) - she only thought about the distinct lack of a certain two people that would be present this time around. There would be no distractions: No Chaeyoung to talk to her while the needle was held close, no Dahyun to cast a smile upon her face to numb the dull ache away. The public health centre in Seocho-gu would remain sterile, professional, and cold.

Sometimes she forgot, and would turn around to one, armed with some stupid comment about height or animal/food look-alikes, only to fall short, let the thought die on her lips when struck by the present and a harsh glare.

Sometimes they forgot: There was that one morning when Chaeyoung walked in, headphones firmly attached, and happiness wrapped around her like a dependable but worn scarf. A smile grew on her face, her fingers stretched and blossomed into the air - all directed at her. But then the wave shriveled up into the girl’s fist, killed by the confused strike of realisation while the scarf was knocked off its perch to be trampled underfoot.

Or there was that time when Dahyun bounced right up to her desk, proudly brandishing a clip of her doing some sort of trick on a skateboard.

“Hey look at thi-”

And then she tailed off, repainted her scowl over the pained grimace and stomped away, phone snatched away with regretful fingers.

All the while, her insistence to blend in played as a broken record in her mind, always lurking and eating away at every action. She now felt each whisper, each rumor more keenly and her brain didn’t waste the opportunity to twist each and every one into her mirror’s image.

This led to her finally going back to that place, even though the urge to throw up or run out struggled to be free with every closing step to the door. The members didn’t make many comments, just mentioned how glad that she was back (this didn’t include the obvious two suspects - Dahyun just refused to look in her direction while Chaeyoung was polite but didn’t smile or meet her eyes for longer than a glance). After that they commented on Mark’s absence and then moved on to the topic for that day.

And that was the routine for a while.

She told herself the numbing monotony and emptiness took away from the barbed stinging of their ignorance and ignoring. At least it helped her lay low.

Or so she thought.

_She’s coming over here, shit._

It was the end of another meeting and most people were filing out of the door like they were all supposed to be. Tzuyu had been hanging back, not wanting to give anyone the chance to start small conversation and an opportunity to test for chinks in her defenses. Now she wished she had been the first out, her only exit blocked by the gentle ebb of people leaving.

“Hi there.” Sana’s voice cut in, finalising her entrapment. “Can I talk to you for a moment?”

The way it was phrased wasn’t a question. Still, Tzuyu tried to answer, swallowing down the butterflies in her throat and wiping her sweaty hands on her skirt, the rough texture doing very little to calm her.

“I...umm…” She could barely look the other girl in the eye. _You’re looking really weird and suspicious._ It’s not like she could have left either - a few others were still loitering around, chatting as if they had all the time in the world.

Sana just sighed, grabbed her wrist and yanked her out of the classroom. Tzuyu half-stumbled, half-tripped as her feet collided with each other in an effort to keep up with being pulled sideways. She was finally released when she heard the sound of the door of this new classroom being shut.

The other girl whirled round to look at her, fiery expression boring into her.

“You’ve been acting weird.”

Another statement.

“W-what?” She couldn’t keep the stutter out of her voice this time. _This was not good. Not good at all._ “I haven’t-”

“Seriously I’m surprised that no-one else has picked you up on it yet.” She was looking directly at Tzuyu’s eyes, her direct stare just daring her to try another aversion or lie, and see where that would get her. Nothing came to her tongue, overwhelmed by everything happening at once she was adrift in a stormy sea on a rickety raft that was falling apart. “I’m going to give you one chance to say it - so what’s up?”

_She needed an excuse, something - anything to divert this conversation or to satisfy the girl._

“I-I can’t tell you.” _Not good enough, even if it was the truth._

She sighed.

“Really?” Disbelief, little bit of irritation and... _something else?_ were in her eyes. Her usual small smile had been usurped by a scowl and her cute, happy-go-lucky, slightly-clumsy attitude was nowhere to be found. Sure, Tzuyu thought Sana was intimidating before - but not because she had this whole dark aura of _I’m-going-to-get-answers-from-you-right-now_. “Look, I’m worried about you and-”

Suddenly Tzuyu was angry. _This shit again_.

“That’s what the others said but they didn’t care!” She spat, shoving the other girl back and turning away from her, hiding her face and emotions. She expected to be whirled around, shouted at, met fury and left with a disappointed last over-the-shoulder glance - she instead just heard a low sigh.

“Oh, the argument.”

“You knew?” The question fell from Tzuyu’s lips before she even realised it.

“Pretty much whole school knew.”

She ran her eyes over the bright display boards at the back of the room, not knowing how to answer that.

“Oh.”

“You guys were yelling at each other in the middle of a classroom with a bunch of bored students in it - of course people were going to talk afterwards.”

“I guess so…”

She looked closer, examining even the fringes and bordering now. During this inspection she could see the ripped and peeling edges where people had brushed up against it, could see where the bright colour had dampened and faded while shrinking away from the sun.

“So do you wanna talk about it?”

She couldn’t make out the names on the work from here.

“No, not really.”

The printed words were obviously meant to read at a much closer distance.

“Maybe you’ll feel better if you-”

“That’s what they said _but they didn’t listen!_ ”

Fingernails were dragging deep into the palms of her hands.

“Okay but-”

She turned around.

“-NO! I’m _sick and tired_ of people thinking that they know me. I hate it when they just pretend like they know _my problems_ and what’s going on with m- _what I have to deal with OKAY!?_ I HATE IT!” The other girl looked shocked, not saying anything to the outburst and just standing there as wave after wave of anger hit her and then dispersed.

At this sight suddenly Tzuyu felt the fury leave - as if one of those waves had crashed on her instead, breaking loose and drowning her in realisation. All of her momentum was gone instantly and she was off balance.

“I...umm...they really hurt me.” The silence pressed on her ears, a dull beep ringing out as she started to review what she had said and how she had acted during the outburst. _So much for acting normally_.

Sana just reached out, placing her hand on the other girl’s shoulder in a gesture of compassion.

“Yeah but you also hurt them.” Her voice was much lower; it was slow and comforting, as if she were approaching a wild animal.

“They didn’t understand how much it still affects me”

“They’re not always going to understand. You have to know that. Sometimes people do stuff that really hurts us with good intentions because they just don’t understand - and yeah, it sucks.” She brushed some stray hair from in front of Tzuyu’s eyes. “But at the end of the day they’re trying their best. Not everybody will understand and you’ve gotta take the time to make them see things your way if it bothers you.”

“They were out of line.”

“I’m not saying they weren’t - but did you think you might have been too? Things aren’t black and white - we like to paint stuff like that: Casting a villain so that we can be heroes. Sometimes we have to take a step back and watch the story unfold to check that we’re not a bad guy.”

“Okay...that was actually a really good metaphor.”

The other girl just smiled, the look in her eyes changing subtly but surely drawing Tzuyu in.

“I’ve been reading more”

“Oh.”

“ _I_ _nteresting_ things I assure you.”

Tzuyu looked away to hide the red she felt creeping up into her cheeks.

“Look, I’m not going to tell you what to do, okay? That’s all up to you. But nothing will change if no one apologises.” Sana had such an ernest look on her face, Tzuyu couldn’t help but believe her and the passion behind her words. “People aren’t monsters - sometimes you’ve got to be the one to reach out first, or things will never change y’know?”

Tzuyu suddenly felt really self conscious all of a sudden, starting to think back over her actions. “I dunno.” She said, playing with her sleeve.

“If you do ever want to talk about it, I’m here.”

The other girl walked to the door, casting a final look back when she opened it.

“See you around Chewy.”

She winked over her shoulder and then walked through the door, clipping the doorway on her way out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't know why I decided that all that dialogue was a good idea - but hey it's done now...
> 
> So hey an update! Finally!
> 
> Thank you all for reading and comments and kudos are really appreciated - they let me know that people are out there reading this and I'm not just shouting into the void.
> 
> Until next time :P


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